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Saulanar Azureseeker
Saulanar Azureseeker is a remarkably old blood elf battle mage and the leader of the Azureseeker Expedition. Background Saulanar was born in the poor Azureseeker family of workers. Although the Troll Wars ended several years prior to Saulanar's birth, his once huge family still suffered its consequences as they lost most their members during the war and many were left invalid, some even impotent, due to forest troll assaults and accidents while building or repairing structures, thus, the Azureseeker family spent over 1600 years struggling and clinging to keep existing, but it was becoming increasingly difficult as they were having to rely on contact and interaction with other peasant families, which was a challenge considering how ill-founded most of the Azureseekers were. Early life ''Year 1177 BDP - 1159 BDP '' Saulanar wasn't sure if he was lucky or unfortunate for being the sole child of the last healthy couple of his family, as they placed a huge hope in him. Saulanar's parents, Tyranatel and Trishana Azureseeker, used most of their money to make huge investments in young Saulanar, which was enough to pay for his inclusion in a mediocre academy where the newborn Azureseeker studied for many years. However, those weren't times of peace for Saulanar, as, unlike many of the students he met, success in the academy and the activity of studying itself was a mission to save his family and himself from complete poverty and even extinction, there was only one issue behind it: unfortunately for him, he hated studying with a burning passion, which turned this "mission" into a big burden that, according to his own conceptions, he was forced into, but he chose to carry such burden as he knew his very life was now depending on it. Years in the academy remain in Saulanar's mind as the least annoying of the most disturbing periods of his life, his nearly complete devotion to his studies caused him to become a fairly skilled mage in the limits of the quality of the academy's teachings. Also, his father died in a work accident during this mean time, which only added grief to his already agonizing stay at the institution, despite his hatred towards his family for the "disgrace they put themselves into", Saulanar still admired how his parents devoted themselves to "mend their mistakes" and took as much care as they could of him during his childhood. With his father dead and academy concluded, Saulanar became the head of his family as the only healthy male remaining, which was also met with disapproval by himself, for the fate of his whole family once again fell on his shoulders and he hadn't even reached his twenties. Regardless of his opinion on it, the young elf began taking several measures to revert the disgraceful state of his family, the main ones being: adoption and contacts. Head of the Family ''Year 1159 BDP - 858 BDP '' The family was mostly crippled and Saulanar wished to abolish the many incestuous relationships they were forced to engage in order to keep themselves going, remarking that his beloved parents themselves were actually siblings, thus he introduced the adoption of physically capable people, which caused most of the more conservative members of the family to protest against it, but their complains fell on deaf ears. Saulanar did know that his family was on a critical situation, but he knew there were individuals in worse situations, thus he journeyed all across the dark corners of Silvermoon City, rallying as many vagabonds and vagrants as he could after promising them chances to shape a truly decent life in exchange of their aid in restoring his own family. Initially, the adopted Azureseekers viewed their newfound relatives as mere partners of business, but a true bond eventually developed as time passed and they dealt with their animosities. Save for a few serious commotions between adopted and pureblooded Azureseekers, Saulanar's plan was mostly successful as the family now had a stable number of capable people. The family, however, still faced a very fragile economic situation, thus Saulanar universalized the family income and centralized its investiments exclusively to his decisions, using the best his spells could provide to keep a tight watch over his relatives' gains and spending, this measure was also met with a huge distrust as Saulanar would administrate the whole family's monetary gains and direct where they should be spent, but Saulanar didn't abuse this power for his own personal property and his relatives noticed it over time. Saulanar didn't have a natural talent for administration, the sources of his knowledge were his teachers in the academy and they were the first subjects of Saulanar's second great measure: the contacts. Saulanar kept contact with his teachers even after concluding the academy as they were the people the young elf formed the closest bonds during his days as a student, Azureseeker's dedication to his studies and his disciplinate behavior were well alive in his teachers' minds and, as Saulanar had shared the story of his life with them, they decided to contribute to the young housefather's cause by offering him an opportunity to work on the academy as a teacher. As a teacher, Saulanar improved his skills as a mage and administrator further as it allowed him to have a closer and more constant contact with his former masters. Part of his earnings went to his relatives as a way to provide aid in paying their debts while the other was obviously spent with himself. Later on, Saulanar had an audience with the head of the academy he now worked in and, after some convincing, the housefather managed to convince his superior to accept his relatives as students in the academy under considerable discounts of their monthly payments, thus increasing his family's level of education while also bolstering the number of students in the academy. Also as part of his second measure, Saulanar kept contact with many of his graduated students, some of which managed to grow considerably in life, and through their talks he managed to arrange several work opportunities for his family in whatever business such former students started, thus not only increasing the income of the family but also specializing them in different areas other than peasant work. As a personal consequence of his measures, Saulanar started being held in a high regard, his blood relatives were finally beginning to accept his methods and started treating him in a more docile way and were glad that even many of the family's disabled members found alternative works thanks to his contacts with his newfound friends, while the adopted ones regarded him as a savior, not sure of where they would be if Saulanar hadn't found them. Some of his relatives also managed to join some branches of Quel'Thalas' military and passed on their knowledge of melee combat to Saulanar as a mean of retribution, who mixed his newfound knowledge with his prowess as a spell caster, eventually becoming a battle mage of sorts. After over 1600 years of crisis, the Azureseeker family finally met an age of stability and progress thanks to the 301 years of effort under Saulanar's administration. The Second War ''Year 6 ADP '' The Orcish Horde managed to penetrate Quel'Thalas through its cliffs undetected and laid siege to the kingdom with the aid of Warlord Zul'jin's Amani tribe, the massive attack brought them as far as Eversong Woods, luckily not as far as reaching the Azureseekers' properties. Unwilling to allow the Horde to destroy what he fought so hard to build, Saulanar ordered all those unable to fight due to mental or physical limitations, be them due to deficiencies or even dread towards their enemies, to be moved to Saulanar's house at Silvermoon City while the housefather enlisted himself and his capable relatives as volunteers. Saulanar didn't fight much during the Second War, but provided some logistic aid and helped in the transportation of the high elven forces using his abilities as a mage to provide portals and so on. The head of the Azureseeker family also met a huge improvement in both his arcane and melee abilities, the few times he was forced to engage in battle tested his skills to their limits, thus solidifying his "transformation" into a battle mage. Azureseeker stood among the forces of the Alliance of Lordaeron up to the final battle at the Dark Portal, the only one which he fought from the beginning up to its end, only returning to Quel'Thalas after witnessing the the destruction of the portal. Saulanar was welcomed as a hero by his relatives back at his homeland and, after conducting the final rites in honor of the Azureseekers who fell during the war, returned to his standard life. Beyond the Dark Portal ''Year 8 ADP '' Saulanar was later invited to accompany a group of his former colleagues of his time as a student to join the Alliance Expedition in invading the Horde's homeworld of Draenor after the Dark Portal had been reopened, however, Azureseeker refused the invitation and chose to stay at Quel'Thalas practicing his melee abilities and improving his studies in the arcane arts. In the years that followed, Azureseeker became even more skilled as battlemage. Third War ''Year 20 ADP '' Saulanar led his family in battle and they fought bravely alongside the local defenses of Quel'Thalas against the relentless Scourge only to be mostly decimated. With only a few cousins remaining, the horrified elf led them in a desperate retreat out of Quel'Thalas before the undead army's dominance over the land was supreme, going all the way to Alterac Mountains and settling at the dark corners of the fallen human kingdom's ruins for weeks until one of his relatives returned from a hunt for food at Hillsbrad Foothills and said to have spotted a thick human and dwarven presence at Dalaran and that the demons who once dominated it were gone. Saulanar and his remaining relatives made their way to the city, where they pledged their allegiance to the New Alliance in order to avenge their land and fallen comrades, there, he learned of his people renaming themselves to blood elves as a tribute to those who fell at Quel'Thalas, which the remaining Azureseeker family promptly adhered to. Eventually, however, the Azureseekers started regretting their decision, for its human supremacist leadership was mining the elven half's efforts. During the second invasion of the Scourge against Dalaran, Saulanar witnessed as his people fought side by side with the serpentine naga in a desperate effort to keep their holdings since the Alliance's leader had taken most of their forces to the front lines, something he did not approve of. The elf was planning to sneak away from the battlefield and seek another place to stay and bring his relatives with him, however, like the rest of his people, the blood elf was imprisoned at the Dungeons of Dalaran. Once again, the blood elves needed naga aid in order to escape, the Azureseekers grudgingly accepting it in order to preserve their lives again. When the elves broke out of the prison and started making their way to a world named Outland with the naga, Saulanar refused to follow and, seizing the distraction caused by the Alliance's elite guard making constant advances against the portal the blood elves were activating, channeled a massive teleport spell that spirited him and his cousins out of the city all the way back to the Ruins of Alterac, from where they made their way back to Quel'Thalas, bolstered by the Alliance weaponry and rations looted from the dungeons during their escape, choosing to stay in the shadows of their ruined kingdom and fight a losing battle against the undead rather than standing the Alliance's racism and the dubious creatures who called themselves allies of the blood elves. Much to their delight, the Azureseekers found a considerable number of their brethren there and promptly joined them in their task to reclaim their lost lands. Upon noticing the heavy militarization that his family's organization underwent, Saulanar and his cousins founded the familiar paramilitary group Azureseeker Expedition, traveling around all corners of the land where their brethren could be located in order to aid them against the undead. During a night, Saulanar sneaked away from his family-soldiers as they slept in their tents, climbing a nearby tree and staying atop of it. As he looked to the few people beneath him, the elf's pain, suffering and horror, which he had supressed from the Scourge's invasion up to that moment, were finally let out. He remembered the days when he hated his family in the beginning and wished themselves to be destroyed so that he could live his own life, how foolish he thought he was for accepting to work so hard for them, and, when he finally succeeded and regretted all his previous feelings about his relatives, the Horde came and killed several of them, and when they had finally recovered from the orcs' blow, the Scourge arrived and slaughtered most of them, ruining centuries of work in a single year. For the first time in his long life, years of frustration and stress, and now disgrace, were finally regarded as tears constantly fell from his eyes, as he cried angry and silently. Burning Crusade ''Year 26 ADP '' Six years after their return to Quel'Thalas, Saulanar and his family enjoyed as their situation returned back to stable and healthy proportions, their numbers were still small if compared to how they were before the Scourge, but they did grow over the years. Azureseeker and his family-army kept exercising their previous duties in aiding their people in the fight against the Scourge, this time focusing on the undead at the Ghostlands, the elf eventually witnessed as some elves made their first contact with the newfound Forsaken, conscious undead who were eager to aid them against the undead. Saulanar initially despaired, afraid that they were either going to be allies as venomous as the naga or spies of the Scourge, Saulanar sent one of his relatives to Tranquillien after it was reclaimed by the combined efforts of the sin'dorei and their new undead allies in order to analyze the conscious corpses and keep the expedition's activity ongoing while he and the rest scouted around Eversong Woods after hearing rumors of kaldorei spies in the land. Saulanar eventually found some night elven spies and, alone, was among the many sin'dorei adventurers who helped uncover the Darnassian spying plans and attacked Shalandis Isle in order to thin their numbers and ransack their battle plans, Saulanar found neither of the plans but did kill his own fair share of kaldorei before teleporting to his house at Silvermoon City once it was announced that their objective was complete. Upon arriving at his home, a scout arrived and gave him an extensive report of the expedition's opinion and analysis of the Forsaken, which convinced Saulanar of their intention to truly fight the Scourge at the land, but was taken aback when he discovered they were working on trying to have Quel'Thalas join the ranks of the Horde. Azureseeker was initially outraged by this matter, well remembering what the orcs did to his people in the past, however, with the Alliance getting closer and closer to his brethren's land, and the treacherous humans backing them up, Saulanar deemed that perhaps joining the Horde wasn't as illogical as it sounded. Azureseeker later brought the rest of his expedition to Tranquillien, where they aided the locals the way they could in combating the undead, the forest trolls and the corrupted wild life. Saulanar personally led a small task force of his family-army to the gates of Deatholme as soon as the assaults of several other adventurers began, but fought mostly at the Scourge base's gates and its outside surroundings, doing minor contributions to the attack inside it by joining brief skirmishes. When the news of the defeat of the Dar'Khan Drathir were sounded, Saulanar returned victorious with his relatives. Not so long after the conflict, the news of the blood elves' acceptance within the Horde reached his ears, and the elf was slightly pleased. Later on, Saulanar took his expedition to the Dark Portal, the elf stopped to gaze at it as he remembered the dire battles he witnessed and fought around it, then entered it with his family-force. The expedition traveled around the Horde settlements all over the planet, aiding them in what they could. During one of his assaults on a fel orc base camp at Hellfire Penninsula, Saulanar ended up clashing on a one-on-one combat with a creature of beastial speed: a fel orc blademaster, the elf's magic granted him his victory, but not before he was fatally wounded, which forced his relatives to grab him and retreat. On his way to be retrieved by his family, Saulanar used his waning strength to take blademaster's katana as a token of his victory, and, after enchanting it with arcane, fire and frost runes, it became his weapon of choice: Mael'glinon. After recovering, the blood elf had his forces focus solely on combating the Fel Horde as vengeance for their initial defeat, aiding the Horde at Hellfire Penninsula with great resolve. After the news of the death of both Kargath Bladefist and his Magtheridon reached Thrallmar, the elf divided his forces into two halves to combat the Alliance in a bloodthirsty hunt for humans, one aiding the Horde in its constant fights for control over the town of Haala while the other, led by Saulanar himself, aided the Horde in ensuring dominance over the Bone Wastes by helping its soldiers and adventurers in claiming the Spirit Towers. Ignoring the other conflicts completely to do battle with the Alliance, Saulanar only changed his plans after news that the Isle of Quel'Danas was under attack by demons and his corrupted brethren, causing him to immediately move them there through a shortcut in the form of a portal at Shattrath City. After the Burning Legion at Quel'Danas was defeted, Saulanar and his expedition started traveling around Azeroth, resuming their aid to the Horde in order to improve their earnings and equipment to better combat their enemies. Wrath of the Lich King ''Year 27 ADP '' Saulanar was at the Valley of Spirits conversing about a mission given to him with the female tauren that hired their services when the Scourge invaded Orgrimmar. Opening a portal to Silvermoon City, Saulanar promptly demanded his expedition's presence and their full numbers arrived to aid the locals in the city's defense. When the Horde set up bases around Northrend, Saulanar led his expedition to the continent to finally have his proper revenge on the army who destroyed his home and family, fighting mainly at Dragonblight and Icecrown. Luckily for him and his family-force, none of them were at the Wrathgate tragedy. However, instead of attending the Horde's efforts to cull the Legion-aligned traitors within Undercity, Saulanar forced his relatives to stay and fight against the Scourge and the Alliance at Northrend, a decision that wasn't met positively. The blood elf eventually joined a warband of Horde adventurers that were about to raid the Shadow Vault in order to rid from Scourge presence. During the battle, Saulanar was attacked by a female dwarf and male human death knights, the elf had extreme difficulty to hold his ground against them but orcish rogue ambushers relieved the effort by disarming both knights of their runeblades and striking their powerless selves down, the elf was then attacked by a third death knight, this one being a female orc. Although the two seemed evenly matched despite the brief moments of advantage to the knight, a timely empowered strike of Mael'glinon managed to behead the knight, Saulanar proceeded to incinerate his enemy to avoid any possible comebacks, however, he noticed that most of the powerful saronite gear of the death knight withstood his spell and rapidy took it within his grasp while dodging as many attacks from the undead as he could. The Horde assault was a failure and all adventurers were killed, save for Saulanar, who rapidly teleported away with his new discovery. Back at Sunreaver's Command at Crystalsong Forest, Saulanar and his forces tried to figure out ways of working with the mysterious mineral that they found. Unaware of the dark properties of the metal, the expedition reforged it into an armor for the blood elf to wear, although there weren't enough for the shoulder armor, which was rapidly solved by forging white-painted cobalt armor, and only a few for his chest armor. As time passed, Saulanar started hearing strange sounds, akin to whispers that were so discreet he thought to be hearing himself thinking. Slowly, Azureseeker's new powerful equipment began to corrupt its wearer, although the blood elf seemingly showed little to no signs of it, due to the corruptive process going on an extremely slow pace, aside from the fact that Saulanar inexplicably restrained his forces from contributing to the war effort at Ulduar by time of Yogg-Saron's releases and the Halls of Stone and Lightning before it. By the time of the war's end, Saulanar returned with his forces to Quel'Thalas. Cataclysm ''Year 28 ADP '' With the rise of Deathwing and the constantly raging war against the Twilight's Hammer, several protests from his family-force against his decisions started rising as Saulanar, for reasons they couldn't understand, ordered them to not take part in the conflict, claiming that the Alliance was the primary target to be destroyed. Under the dark influence of the raw saronite armor's properties, Azureseeker managed to withstand the pressure placed upon him by his expedition and successfully convinced them to stay mostly passive, only acting to combat the Alliance at the Western Plaguelands and remote places such as the Hinterlands, not making any significant contribution neither to the war against Deathwing and even the Alliance-Horde war as a whole, including the Attack on Theramore Isle. Mists of Pandaria ''Year 30 ADP '' The corruption within Saulanar's mind gaining even more ground but keeping the same discretion, the Expedition contributed little to the initial conflict at the newfound land of Pandaria. His relatives' opposition to his rule grew considerably and the family-force was at the risk of crumbling, suddenly, Saulanar heard their pleas and the Azureseeker Expedition landed at Pandaria by way of the portal from Orgrimmar to Honeydew Village. Although also fighting the Alliance, Saulanar suspiciously manipulated the situation so that they would mostly focus on fighting against the mogu settlements under the excuse that they possessed powerful arcane artifacts that would be useful for the war effort, which, although truth, was only a cover for the dark influence within the elf's mind luring him into attacking the creations of the Titans. Due to this same influence, Saulanar led his expedition to the Isle of Thunder to aid the Sunreaver Onslaught in dealing with the mogu and their Zandalari allies, as well as stage skirmishes across the isle against agents of the Kirin Tor Offensive in order to keep his subjects at bay. Despite the defeat of the Thunder King and news from a rebellion against the tyranny of Warchief Garrosh Hellscream ongoing on Durotar, Saulanar ordered his forces to stay at the Isle of Thunder with the onslaught until the blood elves were done and ready to join the conflict, the corruption within Saulanar whispering him to not interfere with the conflict. Unfortunately for whatever lied inside the saronite gear, the expedition had acquired several powerful and ancient arcane artifacts across Pandaria and the Isle of Thunder, upon tapping upon their power during a ritual to study them, the outburst of arcane energy temporarily empowered Saulanar enough to withstand the dark presence within his gear, unwittingly restoring his proper mindset. Escalation With his mind being his own again, Saulanar and his expedition went to Kalimdor by ship and, shortly after landing at the shores of Durotar and pledging themselves to the cause of the rebellion, Saulanar, based at Sen'jin Village, heard of the Kor'kron's offensive against Vendetta Point at Southern Barrens and rapidly rallied his whole family-army to attack them before they posed any more serious threat and to keep the focus of the fight at the Barrens' northern half. Rallying his whole forces, the blood elves set up a temporary base at the Overgrowth, where they spent a few days preparing themselves while making bandages with the local twisted flora, and then finally charged against Vendetta Point. Saulanar expected an easy victory, for he thought the Kor'kron forces there were just a small few considering the situation of Northern Barrens and the fact that Vendetta was too small, however, he and his guild met a considerably sized contingent of orcs that swiftly overwhelmed his forces, the survivors of the bloody conflict were brought to the newly built prison camp at the Fields of Blood. In the same day, during the Gnomeregan Blackjacks' assault on Vendetta Point, Saulanar managed to loot a prison key from one of the Kor'kron enforces that died near his cell and escaped without taking a single of his surviving family-soldiers due to the gnomes being defeated far too fast. Vendetta Conflict See: Vendetta Conflict Alongside Nimbus Clash, Saulanar stumbled upon Grey Point and met Commander Leugim of the Grey Legion, the trio would, after Leugim sent Legionary Pazie to rescue the gnomes and blood elves, become close allies and the founding members of the coalition to combat the Kor'kron at Southern Barrens after alliance between the Gnomeregan Blackjacks, Azureseeker Expedition and the Grey Legion was sealed. Saulanar, combating the immense grief of losing most of his family again in such a small amount of time, personally led his remaining forces in a vengeful attack against the Kor'kron's prison camp at the Fields of Blood alongside Nimbus' Blackjacks and the quilboar rallied by Mrog Hellflank, who were freed and armed by the Grey Legion, thus expanding Grey Point's territory up to a portion of where the destroyed prison camp used to be and acquiring new allies in the form of the swine humanoids. At another moment, when the Grey Legion was bringing supplies from Northwatch Hold when they were attacked by Daw'gar Stripribs, Neymaro Boulderkick and a handful of Kor'kron, Saulanar and Nimbus arrived at the scene by using the portal to Grey Point opened by Saleril to kick the pack mules into it. While the Legion confronted Neymaro and his Kor'kron, Saulanar and Nimbus fought against Stripribs together, the trio of combatants being evenly matched solely because of the battlemage and the gnome warrior's agility to avoid Daw'gar's deadly energy attacks from his new gear, composed of powerful metal infused with repurposed titan technology derived from the core of the ancient construct Vadseth. The blood elf and the gnome were unable to defeat Daw'gar and the Grey Legion was overwhelmed with a few attacks from the empowered orc shortly after they joined the battle, luckily for them, Saulanar casted a massive teleport spell to avoid their possible deaths at the hands of the son of Arnosh Stripribs, bringing them back to Grey Point. Later on, Saulanar led a task force of his blood elves to Pandaria in order to search for artifacts of titan origin that could be used against Daw'gar Stripribs' powerful gear, after chasing down the warband of a mogu known as Haungse all the way from Shan'ze Dao at Townlong Steppes to Emperor's Rest at Kun-Lai Summit, Commander Leugim personally arrived with Overseers Tsukia and Suke Wovenleaf to aid the elves in claiming the titan relic that composed the mogu warlord's armor. Together, they struck down what remained of the mogu's forces and took the armor to Grey Point. The expedition leader led his cousin-soldiers during the final battle alongside the Grey Legion and Leugim's skeletal minions, the Blackjacks and Mrog's quilboar. The elves quickly made their way to Vendetta Point but were held back by a group of Dark Shaman and Saulanar found himself surrounded by enemies and separated from his forces, the Grey Legion arrived in time and slaughtered his attackers, allowing him to reorganize his forces and launch a combined attack Vendetta Point's heavily guarded northern entrance while the Grey Legion confroted Harokaja and her impressive elemental powers in the southern one. After the end of the battle and the death of the Kor'kron leadership at Southern Barrens, Saulanar made no effort to hide his gratitude towards the Legion and departed the liberated Vendetta Point shortly after Nimbus did so. With the end of the conflict, the expedition resumed their usual combat at the Northern Barrens. Siege of Orgrimmar Saulanar led the Azureseeker Expedition into Orgrimmar when the Darkspear Rebellion and the Alliance attacked the Drag, Saulanar eventually spotted the Grey Legion fighting against the death knight Ogashin Bloodspreader and saw the allied guild's death knight Zarox being hurled against the Valley of Honor's closed gate from the proximities of the entrance to the Cleft of Shadows. With the effects of the arcane enchantments beginning to wear off and the dark energies beneath Orgrimmar bolstering the corruptive powers within his saronite armor, Saulanar ordered his forces to retreat, leaping and catching Zarox before the blood elf death knight collided with the ground and opening a portal to Razor Hill, bringing his forces and the crippled death knight with him. After leaving Zarox at the Razor Hill inn, Saulanar teleported his forces to Quel'Thalas, when asked about the reasons behind it, the elf merely said that that conflict was over for them. Again, the protests from his subjects restarted, the inner corruption within his mind fueling his thoughts into an angry frenzy, Saulanar teleported them to the corrupted woods between Eversong and Ghostlands, where he forcefully tapped in the maddening energies of the saronite gear and weaved it towards his subjects, the maddening sounds that had been secretly degenerating Saulanar's consciousness briefly spreading to his own family, the mere seconds the corruption was channeled into them was enough to soothe them, slightly twisting their thoughts into obeying the head of the family-guild, and from this point on, the progressively maddening Saulanar started working on depriving his forces of foolish opposition while seeking new ways to restore its numbers. Trivia * Saulanar's appearance is a reference to the character Sephiroth from the Final Fantasy franchise. Category:Horde characters Category:Male characters Category:Blood elves Category:Mages